Daily trading volume doubles NBA Top Shot, why are these "monkeys" more popular than people?

(This article is authorized and reprinted from ChainNews, titled "Daily Trading Volume Doubles NBA Top Shot, Why are These 'Apes' So Hot?" Original article here)

Author: 0x13

Which NFT project do you think is currently the hottest?

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Is it the long-standing CryptoPunks that have dominated various charts and landed in Sotheby's auction house, or the NBA Top Shot that has pushed NFTs into the mainstream and is being pursued by major NBA stars, or perhaps the latest work from Larva Labs, the creators of CryptoPunks, Meebits?

The answer is: "None of the above."

When you open NFT data statistics website CryptoSlam, you will be surprised to find that a project has emerged unexpectedly on the 24-hour ranking, surpassing CryptoPunks, NBA Top Shot, and Meebits to claim the top spot, and that is the Bored Ape Yacht Club.

As of the time of writing, the Bored Ape Yacht Club has achieved a 24-hour sales volume of $1.6 million, nearly double that of the second-ranked NBA Top Shot and four times that of CryptoPunks.

Generally, a newly born project tends to easily surpass various established projects in sales rankings due to its novelty and can rank high in the short term, but the Bored Ape Yacht Club is not exactly a "newborn." It was born in early May, at the peak of the NFT frenzy, and subsequently, as the overall NFT market quickly cooled down, the Bored Ape Yacht Club also disappeared from the rankings. However, now, the strong comeback of the Bored Ape Yacht Club has caught everyone's attention, and this project, which has experienced a brief cycle of bull and bear markets in the NFT market, once again bursts with tremendous vitality.

When you search for the Bored Ape Yacht Club on OpenSea out of curiosity, what you will see are these apes with melancholic expressions, and their floor price is 1.1 ETH, approximately $2,800.

And when you look at the transaction history of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, you will find that the liquidity of this project far exceeds your imagination, with almost a monkey changing hands every few minutes.

Seeing such a hot scene, many people have begun to ask: "What's the story behind these apes?"

These Monkeys are Wealthy Monkeys

The founding team of the Bored Ape Yacht Club consists of only four members. Gordon is a cryptocurrency trader, Garga is a media professional who also holds some cryptocurrencies, while Tomato and Sass are software engineers. In real life, they are good friends and all have a good understanding of the crypto world.

Gordon and Garga entered the crypto world as early as 2017 and have witnessed the development of NFTs to this day. They have seen the birth of classic projects like CryptoPunks and CryptoKitties, but it wasn't until the appearance of Hashmasks that they realized that even though they didn't understand the technology, they could still create something valuable for the crypto world.

So, the four of them brainstormed and decided to make some noise.

They first set the story background. The story takes place ten years later, where every monkey immersed in the crypto world will be financially free, but by then all liquidity mining will have dried up, so the monkeys start to get bored. So what do the monkeys do every day? Their answer is: play with their monkey companions in a secret club in the marsh.

And the entertainment they designed for these wealthy monkeys is "graffiti on the walls of the Bored Ape Yacht Club Bathroom." Every holder of a monkey NFT can draw on the canvas as they please, with one pixel point available every 15 minutes.

On May 1st, the long-awaited NFTs of the bored monkeys were officially released. Unlike almost all other NFT projects at the time, the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs were not priced using a bonding curve, but priced all 10,000 NFTs at 0.08 ETH each. Interestingly, the sales page boldly stated: "Bonding curves are a Ponzi scheme." The Bored Ape Yacht Club team believed that pricing each monkey at 0.08 ETH was the best way to promote fairness and equality among community members.

After 20 minutes of sales, the founder of the popular NFT collectible project Avastars, J1mmy.eth, tweeted that he had bought over 100 monkeys.

Following that, renowned NFT collector Pranksy also joined in, buying 250 monkeys in one go.

With the endorsement of NFT whales, these monkeys were sold out in less than two hours, generating a total income of 800 ETH, equivalent to around 2.8 million USD.

As of the time of publication, there are 3,600 owners of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, with a total transaction volume of 6,400 ETH, with an average selling price of 0.72 ETH per monkey. In just one month, the price has skyrocketed by 900%.

Why are these monkeys so popular?

Why are these seemingly gloomy monkeys so popular? What makes them so well-liked? Let's delve into this from three perspectives.

Wealth Effect

In real life, when we buy a trendy toy, we often don't consider how much we can make by reselling it. However, in the crypto world, it's the opposite. People buying NFTs are very concerned about whether they can make money from them, sometimes even overriding their personal preferences. When an NFT project has a huge wealth effect and stories emerge of people making big profits with little investment, it naturally attracts attention in the crypto world. For example, NBA Top Shot started to gain popularity after a LeBron James NFT card sold for $100,000, and Hashmasks also gained frenzy early on due to its excellent performance in the secondary market and the soaring price of the NCT token.

What about Bored Ape Yacht Club?

Let's open the Bored Ape Yacht Club page on OpenSea and sort it by the last transaction price from high to low. We will find that compared to the hundreds of ETH for CryptoPunks and Hashmasks, the transaction prices of these monkeys are relatively low. The highest-selling monkey went for only 49.99 ETH, while the second-highest was 21 ETH, less than half of the top one, which is hardly noteworthy on the list of highest NFT transaction prices.

However, we must also consider their initial sale price. With a sale price of just 0.08 ETH, even though the transaction prices are lower, the astonishing price increase is still remarkable. The monkey that sold for 49.99 ETH increased by over 600 times compared to the initial sale price, and the one that sold for 21 ETH saw an increase of over 260 times.

How much profit potential is there for investors buying in the secondary market?

The highest transaction price for CryptoPunks is up to 4200 ETH, while the highest for monkeys is only about one percent of that. Although CryptoPunks' position is not easily shaken, the hundredfold difference still leaves a lot of room for imagination, and it is not without basis.

Monkey number 4882 was sold by the collector Pranksy for 5 ETH to CK_1337. According to the Ethereum browser, CK_1337 resold the NFT for 20 ETH in less than 24 hours, with a profit margin of 400%.

Celebrity Effect

If one day you open Twitter and find that many KOLs you follow are talking about these monkeys, or have changed their avatars to these monkeys, would you become greatly interested in them and want to learn more or buy one?

As mentioned earlier, J1mmy.eth and Pranksy bought a large number of monkeys and shared them constantly on Twitter. Besides them, which other celebrities are also discussing these monkeys?

Those who are interested in crypto art and NFT collectibles must be familiar with a name, 888, a collector who likes to bid with the number 8. 888 not only acquired a large number of monkeys in the secondary market and placed them in his own vault, but also initiated a vote where people could choose between monkeys, CryptoPunks, and Meebits. With over two thousand people participating in the vote, monkeys received 55.5% of the support, CryptoPunks 35.4%, and Meebits less than 10%.

Another NFT collector, DANNY, seems to be buying his first monkey. He tweeted asking for help to find a monkey with rare attributes.

What's even more interesting is that DANNY also initiated a vote, but he still has a strong preference for CryptoPunks. So he asked, "If CryptoPunks are gold, what is silver?" In the voting results, monkeys still ranked first.

Renowned crypto artist Beeple, who creates a piece of art every day, naturally didn't miss out on this trend. He first created "MEEBITS VS. BAYC," depicting a Meebits defeating a monkey. When this artwork was released, it immediately sparked a lot of criticism and mockery, with monkey owners expressing their dissatisfaction with Beeple's work.

Twenty-four hours later, Beeple released another artwork that sparked even more discussion. The piece depicted several monkeys defeating a Meebits, and in the comments section of this tweet, monkey owners asked, "Where can I buy this artwork?"

The day after the release of the above image, a piece of artwork created by another artist received great acclaim. Despite the monkeys and Meebits having a fierce battle, they still became good friends, sitting shoulder to shoulder.

In addition, figures like Dapper Labs, Flow founder Roham, and others changed their avatars to monkeys, while celebrities like Huang Lizheng collected a large number of monkeys. The support and influence of these celebrities have made these monkeys even more sought after.

Community Effect
In recent days, when we open Twitter, Discord, or even some Clubhouse rooms, numerous monkey avatars fill our screens. It is the community effect that gives these monkeys long-lasting vitality.

Before this, it was rare to see an NFT collection that would spontaneously have so many people use such cheap NFTs as their avatars. Unlike CryptoPunks and Hashmasks, where people use them as avatars due to their high prices, some Twitter users with monkey avatars will tweet saying, "I will follow everyone who uses a monkey avatar." Some even list all users with monkey avatars for other "monkeys" to follow. So when you change your avatar to a Bored Ape and after some time open the list of followers, you will see this scene.

Moreover, monkeys with different traits have formed their own "groups," and there are many different channels in the Bored Ape Yacht Club's Discord community.

Many categories not only have channels in the official group but have also created their own communities. For example, with the leopard print monkeys, all owners of leopard print monkeys can choose to join the "BAYC Cheetah Gang" community.

The community creator recommends setting a very high price for your monkey and not selling it easily to increase the value of everyone's NFT. Additionally, the managers say they will organize Cheetah Gang members to ridicule users who sell their leopard print monkeys in the comments under their tweets, and they have already prepared for this "gang."

Early joiners also have an exclusive tag, further enhancing collective honor and community cohesion.

A community with such strong vitality is rare in the NFT field. When you see these groups of monkeys on Twitter, Discord, Clubhouse, or even WeChat groups and friends' circles, can you resist the curiosity and not want to explore further?

What are we really buying when we buy these monkeys?

At first glance, this question may seem redundant. Of course, what we're buying is an NFT. But behind this NFT, what do you see?

Some buy them for their future appreciation potential. They see these monkeys being discussed enthusiastically on social media, with various KOLs changing their avatars to monkeys. They believe these monkeys might become the next CryptoPunks. Compared to the current prices of CryptoPunks, which can go for tens of ETH, these monkeys are too cheap to pass up. Even if they fail, they can afford the risk.

Others are curious about the Bored Ape Yacht Club community. An active and vibrant community is something every resident of the crypto world dreams of, and the Bored Ape community almost fulfills people's fantasies about a community in the NFT space. The community's activity and cohesion speak for themselves. Additionally, the community has achieved many things that other communities have not. Community members actively participate in activities, and the project team operates the community with care.

Have you seen any other project willing to hand over all copyrights to community members? Bored Ape holders can create various peripherals with their monkeys, such as derivative artworks, clothing, or even playing cards, and all sales revenue belongs entirely to the creator without needing to be shared with the project.

Daily trading volume is twice that of NBA Top Shot. Why have these "monkeys" become so popular? Image source: Kimi, founder of BAYC China community

What drives the continuous increase in the value of the Bored Ape Yacht Club? For projects like CryptoPunks and Hashmasks, there has been much discussion about the new generation of digital identities. The general consensus is that we live in the next generation of the Internet, known as the metaverse, where we need a digital identity. NFT projects like these, due to their limited supply and community consensus, can reflect a person's social status and identity. Therefore, these NFT projects that can be used as avatars, 3D embodiments, and other identity symbols are easy to become popular. Among them, CryptoPunks and Hashmasks are the most representative.

However, the simultaneous appearance of Meebits with Bored Ape Yacht Club failed to continue CryptoPunks' myth and did not receive the expected acclaim.

NFT collector Pranksy's view on these two projects is thought-provoking.

In Pranksy's view, these two projects are like a contrast between the crypto world and the traditional financial world. Meebits were distributed for free to the rich who spent tens of ETH to buy CryptoPunks and hundreds of ETH on Autoglyph, while users without these two types of NFTs had to spend almost $8,000 to acquire them; the Bored Ape Yacht Club's 10,000 monkeys were each priced at 0.08 ETH, about $200.

One is targeting the rich as playthings for becoming millionaires; the other targets common people as badges of honor. Badges may not be as valuable as playthings, but behind them are a vibrant community, a decentralized spirit, and the right of every ordinary person to adhere to their beliefs in the face of wealth and capital.

The elite class in big cities may not like some live-streamers promoting goods; they may not be accustomed to the charm of small towns and rural areas. Live-streamers promoting goods may have too many inferior or OEM products, but it must be acknowledged that the cohesion of their fans far exceeds what they imagine. Each live-streamer has their own loyal fan base, and each time they promote goods, the sales they contribute are astonishing.

Imagine if these live-streamers had higher overall quality, meticulously planned every event, and every product was of high quality, carefully selected or crafted, plus a highly cohesive fan community, what would that look like?

This is what the Bored Ape Yacht Club is doing. This team of four has gathered a community of thousands, opening up a path of "encircling the city with rural areas" in the crypto world.